Miklós László (May 20, 1903 – April 19, 1973; born Nicholaus Leitner) was a playwright and naturalized American citizen born in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
, Hungary. He is best known for his play ''Illatszertár'', also known as ''Parfumerie'', which was later used as the storyline for three movies, ''
The Shop Around the Corner
''The Shop Around the Corner'' is a 1940 American romantic comedy-drama film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan. The supporting cast included Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden, Fe ...
'', ''
In the Good Old Summertime
''In the Good Old Summertime'' is a 1949 American Technicolor musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. It stars Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, Clinton Sundberg, and Buster Keaton in his first featured film role at M ...
'', and, most recently, ''
You've Got Mail
''You've Got Mail'' is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nora Ephron and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Inspired by the 1937 Hungarian play '' Parfumerie'' by Miklós László (which had earlier been adapted in 1940 as ''The S ...
''. The play was also adapted for the Broadway stage as the musical ''
She Loves Me
''She Loves Me'' is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.
The musical is the third adaptation of the 1937 play '' Parfumerie'' by Hungarian playwright Miklós László, following the 194 ...
''.
Early life
Leitner (László) was born in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
, Hungary on May 20th,1903 to a family of
German Jew
The history of the Jews in Germany goes back at least to the year 321, and continued through the Early Middle Ages (5th to 10th centuries CE) and High Middle Ages (''circa'' 1000–1299 CE) when Jewish immigrants founded the Ashkenazi Jewish ...
ish descent.
Emperor Franz Josef
Franz Joseph I or Francis Joseph I (german: Franz Joseph Karl, hu, Ferenc József Károly, 18 August 1830 – 21 November 1916) was Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, and the other states of the Habsburg monarchy from 2 December 1848 until his ...
ruled the
Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the
Great War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
was still a few years away. The name "László" was chosen for the Leitner family. No particular reason is known other than that it was a well-known Hungarian name and that it was similar (vaguely) to the original family name "Leitner". Henrik and Ilona Fischer Leitner therefore gave to their infant son on his birth certificate the name Leitner László Nicholaus, last name first as is the custom in Hungary.
Nicholaus grew up in Budapest. His family was in the entertainment business, and he naturally gravitated toward a career in entertainment as well. He was a clever and witty lad, always amusing friends and family with his quips and characterizations. He rubbed elbows with the Hungarian literati of the day including the playwright
Ferenc Molnár
Ferenc Molnár ( , ; born Ferenc Neumann; 12 January 18781 April 1952), often anglicized as Franz Molnar, was a Hungarian-born author, stage-director, dramatist, and poet, widely regarded as Hungary’s most celebrated and controversial play ...
, whose most famous work ''
Liliom
''Liliom'' is a 1909 play by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár. It was well known in its own right during the early to mid-20th century, but is best known today as the basis for the Rodgers and Hammerstein 1945 musical ''Carousel''.
P ...
'' is known to English-speaking audiences as the
Rodgers and Hammerstein
Rodgers and Hammerstein was a theater-writing team of composer Richard Rodgers (1902–1979) and lyricist-dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II (1895–1960), who together created a series of innovative and influential American musicals. Their popular ...
musical ''
Carousel''. It only made sense then that Niki was encouraged to put pen to paper and as a young adult began to produce his own little one-scene plays for the various small theatres and cabarets around the city. These “little plays” became his fame and provided spare income to support his “young man with possibilities” lifestyle. It even afforded him the time to work on some larger more comprehensive works which he would eventually complete as full multi-act plays.
Money was no issue for the young László. His father continued to do very well with his own business endeavours and at one point, anecdotal information describes the father as one of the wealthiest men in Hungary. But tragically, poor management, high living and wild spending brought the family to total destitution. And then unexpectedly his father died and Nicholas was left as the sole provider for his mother and eight siblings. Writing was not sufficient to feed a family and pay the bills, so Niki turned to a host of jobs, none too small to earn the pay that was necessary to keep the family afloat. As he told it, he worked as a candy-maker, collar salesman, necktie agent, script typist, clerk and even worked as a laborer in a petroleum factory while siblings grew up and gradually took responsibility for their own lives and livelihoods.
It came then as a great satisfaction that his first three-act play, ''A legboldogabb ember'', ''The Happiest Man'', a play about an embittered factory worker and the dreamworld to which he escapes for solace, won him the prestigious Hungarian Royal Academy Award for Literature in 1934, the Hungarian equivalent of the American
Pulitzer Prize – quite an achievement for a man barely into his 30s.
Immigration to America
László could have stayed in Hungary, but
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
was approaching, and Hungarians of Jewish extraction knew that the smart money was on leaving the old world behind and heading to America. So in 1938, Nicholaus László pulled up his stakes and embarked for the USA.
He quickly established himself in the local Hungarian community on the
Lower East Side of New York City, bringing his charm and reputation to an immigrant audience clamoring for all things Hungarian and, as everyone else, for relief from the
Great Depression that was gripping the nation. He was, for a time, the "toast of the town", locally at least. He now called himself Miklós László, a purely Hungarian name giving him full acceptance and cachet within the community. But fame in the insular Hungarian language-speaking community of
Yorkville, Manhattan
Yorkville is a neighborhood in the Upper East Side of Manhattan, New York City. Its southern boundary is East 72nd Street, its northern East 96th Street, its western Third Avenue, and its eastern the East River. Yorkville is among the city's m ...
, New York is not the same as making it as a playwright to a larger English-speaking American audience.
Miklós, that is "Miki", would need to further pursue his opportunities. In the fall of 1939 he married Florence Herrman, an aspiring young actress and the daughter of a successful local entrepreneur, a
Cunard Line travel agent, landlord and financial exchange merchant. On December 28, 1944 he completed the transition and became a fully naturalized American citizen and officially adopted the single name now most frequently referenced, Miklós László.
During his lifetime he had numerous writing contracts with
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
. A few projects became major motion pictures, most did not. The writing experiments and the accompanying advances though kept Miki and wife Florence able to make ends meet, barely. Again, other jobs became a necessity.
Miklós László died in New York City in 1973 at the age of 69. His wife Florence died in 1987.
''Parfumerie''
Most famous of all the plays that became produced as a motion picture during this time was ''Illatszertár'', known in English as ''Parfumerie''. It had premiered at the Pest Theatre in Budapest in 1937, and shortly after László came to New York, the play was adapted as a movie script by
Samson Raphaelson
Samson Raphaelson (March 30, 1894 – July 16, 1983) was a leading American playwright, screenwriter and fiction writer.
While working as an advertising executive in New York, he wrote a short story based on the early life of Al Jolson, called ' ...
and became the
Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch (; January 29, 1892November 30, 1947) was a German-born American film director, producer, writer, and actor. His urbane comedies of manners gave him the reputation of being Hollywood's most elegant and sophisticated director; as ...
motion picture ''
The Shop Around the Corner
''The Shop Around the Corner'' is a 1940 American romantic comedy-drama film produced and directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Margaret Sullavan, James Stewart and Frank Morgan. The supporting cast included Joseph Schildkraut, Sara Haden, Fe ...
'' (1940), with
James Stewart,
Frank Morgan
Francis Phillip Wuppermann (June 1, 1890 – September 18, 1949), known professionally as Frank Morgan, was an American character actor. He was best known for his appearances in films starting in the silent era in 1916, and then numerous sound ...
, and
Margaret Sullavan. A few years later it was re-filmed as ''
In the Good Old Summertime
''In the Good Old Summertime'' is a 1949 American Technicolor musical film directed by Robert Z. Leonard. It stars Judy Garland, Van Johnson, S.Z. Sakall, Spring Byington, Clinton Sundberg, and Buster Keaton in his first featured film role at M ...
'' (1949), a semi-musical showcase for
Judy Garland
Judy Garland (born Frances Ethel Gumm; June 10, 1922June 22, 1969) was an American actress and singer. While critically acclaimed for many different roles throughout her career, she is widely known for playing the part of Dorothy Gale in '' The ...
, starring Garland,
Van Johnson
Charles Van Dell Johnson (August 25, 1916 – December 12, 2008) was an American film, television, theatre and radio actor. He was a major star at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer during and after World War II.
Johnson was described as the embodiment o ...
, and
S. Z. Sakall
Szőke Szakáll (born Jakab Grünwald, akas: Gärtner Sándor and Gerő Jenő; February 2, 1883 February 12, 1955), known in the English-speaking world as S. Z. Sakall, was a Hungarian-American stage and film character actor. He appeared in ...
.
In 1963, the play was produced as a full Broadway musical called ''
She Loves Me
''She Loves Me'' is a musical with a book by Joe Masteroff, music by Jerry Bock, and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick.
The musical is the third adaptation of the 1937 play '' Parfumerie'' by Hungarian playwright Miklós László, following the 194 ...
'', with book by
Joe Masteroff. ''She Loves Me'' had music by
Sheldon Harnick
Sheldon Mayer Harnick (born April 30, 1924) is an American lyricist and songwriter best known for his collaborations with composer Jerry Bock on musicals such as ''Fiorello!'' and '' Fiddler on the Roof''.
Early life
Sheldon Mayer Harnick was ...
and
Jerry Bock
Jerrold Lewis Bock (November 23, 1928November 3, 2010) was an American musical theater composer. He received the Tony Award for Best Musical and the Pulitzer Prize for Drama with Sheldon Harnick for their 1959 musical ''Fiorello!'' and the Tony ...
(''
Fiorello!
''Fiorello!'' is a musical about New York City mayor Fiorello La Guardia, a reform Republican, which debuted on Broadway in 1959, and tells the story of how La Guardia took on the Tammany Hall political machine. The book is by Jerome Weidman and ...
'', ''
Fiddler on the Roof'', ''
The Apple Tree
''The Apple Tree'' is a series of three musical playlets with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and a book by Bock and Harnick with contributions from Jerome Coopersmith. Each act has its own storyline, but all three are tied toge ...
'') and was nominated for 5
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...
s including
Best Musical, with
Jack Cassidy
John Joseph Edward Cassidy (March 5, 1927 – December 12, 1976), was an American actor, singer and theater director known for his work in the theater, television and films. He received multiple Tony Award nominations and a win, as well a ...
winning for
Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical. ''She Loves Me'' is also often referred to as the "Ice Cream Musical" because of a signature song and performance by
Barbara Cook
Barbara Cook (October 25, 1927 – August 8, 2017) was an American actress and singer who first came to prominence in the 1950s as the lead in the original Broadway musicals '' Plain and Fancy'' (1955), ''Candide'' (1956) and ''The Music Man'' ( ...
. ''She Loves Me'' was revived in 1993 by the
Roundabout Theatre Company
The Roundabout Theatre Company is a leading non-profit theatre company based in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, affiliated with the League of Resident Theatres.
History
The company was founded in 1965 by Gene Feist, Michael Fried and Elizabet ...
and ran for 354 performances. It was nominated for 9 Tony Awards, including
Best Revival of a Musical as well as in all four acting categories, with
Boyd Gaines winning for
Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Musical. It was revived again in 2016 for a limited run at
Studio 54 from February to July and was nominated for 8 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical, with
David Rockwell
David Rockwell (born July 25, 1956) is an American architect and designer. He is the founder and president of Rockwell Group, a 250-person cross-disciplinary architecture and design practice based in New York City with satellite offices in Madrid ...
winning for
Best Scenic Design of a Musical.
In 1998, the play was used once again as the inspiration for a screenplay, by
Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron ( ; May 19, 1941 – June 26, 2012) was an American journalist, writer, and filmmaker. She is best known for her romantic comedy films and was nominated three times for the Writers Guild of America Award and the Academy Award for ...
, which became the motion picture ''
You've Got Mail
''You've Got Mail'' is a 1998 American romantic comedy film directed by Nora Ephron and starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. Inspired by the 1937 Hungarian play '' Parfumerie'' by Miklós László (which had earlier been adapted in 1940 as ''The S ...
'', with
Tom Hanks
Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...
and
Meg Ryan
Meg Ryan (born Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra; November 19, 1961) is an American actress. She began her acting career in 1981 when she made her acting debut in the drama film ''Rich and Famous''. She later joined the cast of the CBS soap oper ...
.
In 2001, the László/Raphaelson MGM script was adapted for the stage in France and was produced as a straight play ''La Boutique au Coin de la Rue'' ("The Shop at the Corner of the Street"). This production was a faithful adaptation of the MGM movie script ''The Shop Around the Corner'' and ran for the 2002 season in Paris at the
Théâtre Montparnasse
The Théâtre Montparnasse is a theatre at 31, rue de la Gaîté in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.
History
After the death of famed Paris theatre builder and artistic director Henri Larochelle (1826-1884), his widow, along with former actor ...
winning top honors. The production garnered five
Molière Awards, the French equivalent of the American
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ce ...
— for Best New Play, Best Adaptation of a Foreign Work, Best Director, Best Set Design, and Best Lighting.
In June 2004 ''Parfumerie'' was produced for the first time as an English-language play by the theater department of the
University of Illinois
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the Univer ...
, after James Berton Harris, the director of the department's Summerfest, found a translation of the original script in papers donated by Samson Raphaelson to the university's Rare Book and Special Collections Library.
A new adaptation of the play by E. P. Dowdall, a nephew of Miklós László, premiered in December 2009 as ''The Perfume Shop'' at the
Asolo Repertory Theatre
The Asolo Repertory Theatre or Asolo Rep (AKA: Asolo Theatre Company, Inc.) is a professional theater in Sarasota, Florida. It is the largest Actors' Equity Association, Equity theatre in Florida, and the largest Repertory, Repertory theatre in t ...
in
Sarasota, Florida
Sarasota () is a city in Sarasota County on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is renowned for its cultural and environmental amenities, beaches, resorts, and the Sarasota School of Architecture. The city is located in the sou ...
. Almost simultaneously, a script adapted by Adam Pettle and Brenda Robins was produced by the
Soulpepper Theatre Company
Soulpepper is a theater company based in Toronto, Ontario. It is the largest non-profit theater in the city.
History
Soulpepper was founded in 1998 by twelve Toronto artists aiming to produce lesser-known theatrical classics. Soulpepper has sinc ...
in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...
.
Christopher Hoile, "Review: Parfumerie", Stage-Door.com
Linked 2019-07-11.
Other plays and screenplays
In the early 1940s he also wrote a screenplay ''Katherine'' which was picked up by MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
and became the motion picture '' The Big City'' (1948) starring Margaret O'Brien
Angela Maxine O'Brien (born January 15, 1937) is an American film, radio, television, and stage actress, and is one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema. Beginning a prolific career as a child actress in feature ...
, Robert Preston, Danny Thomas
Danny Thomas (born Amos Muzyad Yaqoob Kairouz; January 6, 1912 – February 6, 1991) was an American actor, singer, nightclub comedian, producer, and philanthropist. He created and starred in one of the most successful and long-running sitc ...
and George Murphy
George Lloyd Murphy (July 4, 1902 – May 3, 1992) was an American dancer, actor, and politician. Murphy was a song-and-dance leading man in many big-budget Hollywood musicals from 1930 to 1952. He was the president of the Screen Actors Guild fro ...
. The screenplay examined the diversity and underlying unity of human cultures in the microcosm of a New York City adoption.
Only one other of Miklós László's plays was ever widely produced in the Americas. Entitled ''St. Lazar's Pharmacy'' it is the story of a man learning the lessons of the true value of “home” as compared to the many lures of a false and deceiving world of empty promises. The play starred famed actress Miriam Hopkins
Ellen Miriam Hopkins (October 18, 1902 – October 9, 1972) was an American actress known for her versatility. She first signed with Paramount Pictures in 1930.
Her best-known roles included a pickpocket in Ernst Lubitsch's romantic comedy '' T ...
and toured all over Canada and the United States. (The Juilliard
The Juilliard School ( ) is a private performing arts conservatory in New York City. Established in 1905, the school trains about 850 undergraduate and graduate students in dance, drama, and music. It is widely regarded as one of the most elit ...
library lists a handwritten manuscript of "St. Lazar's Pharmacy" in its catalogue of collections.)
Perhaps the reason we have not seen very many of the plays Miklós László wrote in his early career and during his life is because they were never effectively translated from Hungarian to English and as such have never really had an opportunity to be viewed by American audiences as they were viewed in the country of his birth. Translations exist for many of his works in French and even German, but few in English. The original Hungarian works continue to be performed to this day throughout Hungary on an ongoing basis.
Footnotes
References
*
External links
*
Playscripts.com
Amateur and Professional Production Rights
Broadway, Off-Broadway, West End and First Class Touring company Production Rights
{{DEFAULTSORT:Laszlo, Miklos
1903 births
1973 deaths
American people of Hungarian-Jewish descent
Hungarian Jews
Hungarian male dramatists and playwrights
Theatre people from Budapest
20th-century American dramatists and playwrights
People from the Lower East Side
People from Yorkville, Manhattan
20th-century Hungarian dramatists and playwrights
20th-century Hungarian male writers
American male dramatists and playwrights
20th-century American male writers
Naturalized citizens of the United States
Hungarian emigrants to the United States