William Marchant (May 1, 1923 in

Allentown, Pennsylvania Allentown (Pennsylvania Dutch language, Pennsylvania Dutch: ''Allenschteddel'', ''Allenschtadt'', or ''Ellsdaun'') is a city in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. The city has a population of 125,845 as of the 2020 United ...

– November 5, 1995 in Paramus, New Jersey) was a

playwright A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays. Etymology The word "play" is from Middle English pleye, from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word "wright" is an archaic English ...

and

screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...

. He is best known for writing the play that served as the basis for the 1957 Walter Lang movie, ''

The Desk Set ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in En ...

''. Marchant had been a resident of the Actor's Fund home in

Englewood, New Jersey Englewood is a city in Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, which at the 2020 United States census had a population of 29,308. Englewood was incorporated as a city by an act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 17, 1899, from por ...

at the time of his death. He had earlier lived in the

Stanton Stanton may refer to: Places United Kingdom ;Populated places * Stanton, Derbyshire, near Swadlincote * Stanton, Gloucestershire * Stanton, Northumberland * Stanton, Staffordshire * Stanton, Suffolk * New Stanton, Derbyshire * Stanton by Bri ...

section of Readington Township, New Jersey, in a home owned by Broadway actress Dorothy Stickney.Gussow, Mel
"William Marchant, 72, 'Desk Set' Playwright"
'' The New York Times'', December 20, 1995. Accessed December 1, 2007. "Mr. Marchant had been a resident of the Actors Fund of America Nursing and Retirement Home in Englewood, N.J., before moving to the hospital last year. Before that, he lived in Stanton, N.J., in a house owned by the actress Dorothy Stickney, said Kenneth Stadnik, a neighbor."

Education

Marchant was born in

and attended Temple University in Philadelphia and Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Connecticut.

Career

Playwriting

Marchant's play, ''To Be Continued'', which included a 23-year-old Grace Kelly in the cast, opened on April 23, 1952 at the Booth Theatre on Broadway and ran for 13 performances. Marchant's ''The Desk Set'' opened on Broadway on October 24, 1955 at the Broadhurst Theatre and ran for 296 performances with

Shirley Booth Shirley Booth (born Marjory Ford; August 30, 1898October 16, 1992) was an American actress. One of only 24 performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting, Booth was the recipient of an Academy Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and three Tony Awa ...

in the lead role. The play served as the source material for an eponymous 1957 movie starring Spencer Tracy and

Katharine Hepburn Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an American actress in film, stage, and television. Her career as a Hollywood leading lady spanned over 60 years. She was known for her headstrong independence, spirited perso ...

. In 1975, Marchant wrote ''The Privilege of his Company'', a remembrance of

Noël Coward Sir Noël Peirce Coward (16 December 189926 March 1973) was an English playwright, composer, director, actor, and singer, known for his wit, flamboyance, and what ''Time'' magazine called "a sense of personal style, a combination of cheek and ...

, which was published by Bobbs-Merrill Company. He translated the French play ''Les Dames Du Jeudi'' for Lynn Redgrave and

John Clark John Clark may refer to: Entertainment *John Clark or Signor Brocolini (1841–1906), Irish-born American operatic singer and actor * John Clark (actor) (born 1932), English actor and theatre director *John Clark (American actor) (1933–2011), ...

, who premiered it as ''Thursday's Girls'' in Los Angeles in 1982.

Screenwriting

As a screenwriter, Marchant wrote several episodes for the '' Armchair Theatre'' and ''Armchair Mystery Theatre'', dramatized ''Louise'', a W. Somerset Maugham story, for a 1969

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream an ...

television production, and worked on two films, '' Triple Cross'' (1966) and ''My Lover, My Son''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Marchant, William 1923 births 1995 deaths 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights 20th-century American screenwriters 20th-century American male writers American male dramatists and playwrights American male screenwriters People from Englewood, New Jersey People from Readington Township, New Jersey Screenwriters from New Jersey Screenwriters from Pennsylvania Temple University alumni Yale School of Drama alumni Writers from Allentown, Pennsylvania