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Crowley (Mart) papers
PASC.0318
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Contributing Institution:
UCLA Library Special Collections
Title: Mart Crowley papers
Creator:
Crowley, Mart
Identifier/Call Number: PASC.0318
Physical Description:
54.5 Linear Feet
(109 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1940-2007
Abstract: The Mart Crowley Papers consist of scripts for stage, television, and film; correspondence; research material; newspaper clippings;
photographs; programs' magazines and journals; advertisements; gallery and theatre listings; notes; notebooks; bills and receipts;
commercial and non-commercial audio and video recordings; artwork; and awards.
Physical Location: Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located
on this page.
Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
CONTAINS UNPROCESSED DIGITAL MATERIALS: Digital materials are not currently available for access and will require further
processing and assessment. If you have questions about this material please email spec-coll@library.ucla.edu.
CONTAINS AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed audiovisual materials. Audiovisual
materials are not currently available for access, unless otherwise noted in a Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements
note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital materials must be made in advance using the request
button located on this page.
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UCLA Library Special Collections. Literary rights, including copyright,
are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright
and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
[Identification of item], Mart Crowley papers (Collection PASC 318). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research
Library, UCLA.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user
interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides
a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive
processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
Processed by PASC CFPRT Plus, 2015.
UCLA Catalog Record ID:
6299978
Edward Martino Crowley was born on August 12, 1935 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to Edward Joseph Crowley and Pauline Husbands
Crowley. In 1953 he graduated from St. Aloysius School where he attended both grammar and high school, left Vicksburg and
enrolled at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He was a member of the drama department in the School of
Speech and Drama.
After graduation from The Catholic University in 1957 Crowley moved to New York where he worked as a production assistant
on various movies, including the 1960 adaptation of John O'Hara's 1935 novel "Butterfield 8," starring Elizabeth Taylor. A
short time after the production of "Butterfield 8" had begun, Crowley encountered the director Elia Kazan on the streets of
New York. He had first met Kazan in 1956 in Mississippi where Kazan was filming "Baby Doll." Kazan was in New York preparing
to begin shooting "Splendor in the Grass," starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty and offered Crowley a job on the film.
Crowley left "Butterfield 8" and became the only production assistant on "Splendor in the Grass." Crowley also began a close
friendship with Wood.
Upon completion of "Splendor in the Grass," Wood invited Crowley to come with her to Los Angeles and offered him a job as
her personal assistant so that he could concentrate on his writing. Wood also helped Crowley obtain an agent with the William
Morris Agency. He retained the position of Woods' assistant from 1960-1962. Crowley's first screenplay for 20th Century-Fox
was adapted from the novel "Cassandra at the Wedding" by Dorothy Baker. Shortly after filming began, there were complications
on the set, and the movie was never completed. Several other projects were considered, but none came to fruition.
In the summer of 1967, inspired by The New York Times article by Stanley Kauffmann entitled "Homosexual Drama and Its Disguises,"
Crowley began writing the script for "The Boys in the Band," which he completed in 5 weeks. Unfortunately, Crowley's agent
in New York was "embarrassed" and declared that she could not send the script out with her name on it. Richard Barr decided
to produce the piece at a playwright's workshop in the West Village and Robert Moore was chosen as the director. The play
was moved to Theatre Four, where it remained for almost three years. Taking place in an apartment in New York's posh Upper
East Side, the action concerns nine acquaintances who converge for the birthday of one of their friends. The group includes
Michael, a lapsed Roman Catholic alcoholic who is undergoing psychoanalysis; Donald, a conflicted friend who has moved far
from the city to spurn the homosexual lifestyle; Harold, who is turning thirty and is morose about losing his youthful looks;
Bernard, an African American who still pines for the wealthy white boy of the house where his mother was a maid; Emory, who
revels in his homosexuality by acting flamboyant and girlish; and Larry and Hank, a couple that lives together despite the
fact that they do not agree on the issue of monogamy. Joining them are a male prostitute who has been hired as a ''present''
for Harold's birthday and Alan, an old college friend of Michael's, who claims to be straight but becomes a little too emotional
when his manhood is threatened and is strangely reluctant to leave each time he says he is going.
The play was lauded as one of the best of the season, and in 1969, Crowley was awarded the first Los Angeles Drama Critics
Circle Award. Although the play achieved artistic and commercial success quickly, after the Stonewall Riots it has been referred
to as a "period piece." There were many critics inside the gay community that decried the production as playing into the grotesque
stereotypes of homosexual men as self-loathing and preening; in a short period of time audiences and critics had viewed the
play as a lively drama based on the experiences of specific individuals to a sociological study of gay male life. In 1970,
the original members of the theatre production returned to their roles for the film version. The feature length film was directed
by William Friedkin and based on the screenplay by Crowley. The stage production has been performed in numerous cities around
the world.
Crowley's next play, "Remote Asylum" premiered at the Ahmanson Theatre in Los Angeles on December 1, 1970. The play is based
on observations Crowley made of friends and acquaintances in Hollywood circles during the time he worked as Natalie Woods'
personal secretary. Set in a contemporary mansion, the play dramatizes the lives of five very unlikeable characters. Because
of the success of "The Boy in the Band," expectations for the opening of "Remote Asylum" were high; unfortunately, the play
was considered by critics as unfinished and dull.
The aftermath of criticism of "Remote Asylum" made it very difficult for Crowley to write, so he left to spend three months
in Paris, and then to the south of France, where he attempted to recharge himself. During this time, Crowley contemplated
writing an autobiographical play based on his family, but found it difficult to do so and returned to the United States and
spent the next two years in New York.
In 1973, Crowley spent three months in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he wrote "A Breeze From the Gulf," a fictionalized autobiography
of his life with his parents in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The two act play has similarities to Tennessee Williams' "The Glass
Menagerie," in that it uses "memory" as a thematic device. The three main characters consist of, Michael, the son, aged fifteen
when the play opens; Teddy, the father, businessman, and alcoholic; and Loraine, the controlling and drug addicted mother.
Although the play received mixed and somewhat ambivalent reviews, it was praised for its honesty and strong performances.
Crowley spent another year in New York before taking a job with Columbia Pictures, writing a script titled "Jane," which was
to star Faye Dunaway. Although the project allowed Crowley to spend six months in London, the picture was never made. In 1979
Crowley returned to Paris where he was visited by Natalie Wood and her husband, the actor Robert Wagner. Wagner persuaded
Crowley to return to Los Angeles to assist in writing on his new production "Hart to Hart." He eventually took over as sole
producer on the program which received critical acclaim over a five year, ninety episode run.
After "Hart to Hart," Crowley decided to return to play writing. Originally entitled "Avec Schmaltz," his next play had its
staged reading in the New Play Series at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1984 under the
title "The Spirit of It All." The play dramatizes the life of a divorced mother of two who is trying to rebuild her life with
a new man, although her ex-husband in not entirely out of the picture. The play was optioned by Warner Bros. for seven months
under the title "Dance a Little Closer," but remained unproduced.
In 1986 Crowley wrote the television movie adaptation of James Kirkwood, Jr.'s 1960 novel, "There Must Be a Pony," starring
Robert Wagner and Elizabeth Taylor. Crowley continued writing for television through the early 1990s and returned to the stage
once again with the production "For Reasons That Remain Unclear," which premiered at the Olney Theatre in Olney, Maryland
in the fall of 1993. "For Reasons That Remain Unclear" is a full length, one-act play that takes place in Rome where Patrick,
a screenwriter, encounters and eventually confronts Conrad, a Catholic priest who had sexually molested him at the age of
nine.
"The Boys in The Band" had it's Broadway revival in 1996 at the WPA Theatre in New York. Around this time, Crowley decided
that he wanted to revisit the lives of the original characters from "Boys." The sequel, "The Men from the Boys," had its first
staged reading in October 1999 at the Bat Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York.
The writer Mart Crowley is most notable for the theatrical production "The Boys in the Band," the first time in mainstream
theatre that the issue of homosexuality was addressed. Originally produced in 1968, a film version starring the original stage
cast was produced in 1970, under the direction of William Freidkin. Crowley has also written for television and acted as a
producer on the Columbia Pictures Television series "Hart to Hart," starring his long-time friend, the actor Robert Wagner.
Crowley's stage credits also include "Remote Asylum," "For Reasons That Remain Unclear," "The Spirit of It All," and "A Breeze
From the Gulf." His television credits include an adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's "Remember," the aforementioned series
"Hart to Hart," and "There Must Be a Pony," a mini-series starring Robert Wagner and Elizabeth Taylor.
The collection consists of personal and professional correspondence; screenplays; teleplays; photographs; artwork; notes and
cards; legal documents; personal documents; magazines and journals; audio and video recordings; notes and research material;
and newspaper and magazines clippings.
The collection is organized into the following series:
- Series 1. Scripts, 1962-2006. 28 boxes (11.6 linear ft.)
- Series 2. Published and Produced Works, 1968-2005. 34 boxes (14.17 linear ft.)
- Series 3. Correspondence, 1950-2007. 20 boxes (8.33 linear ft.)
- Series 4. Notes and Research Articles, ca. 1950-2006. 5 boxes (2.0 linear ft.)
- Series 5. Newspaper clippings, ca. 1940-2006. 3 boxes (1.25 linear ft.)
- Series 6. Published Materials, ca. 1968-2005. 4 boxes (1.67 linear ft.)
- Series 7. Legal and Financial documents, ca. 1955-2004. 3 boxes (1.25 linear ft.)
- Series 8. Audio, Video, Computer Discs, 1970-2002. 6 boxes (2.5 linear ft.)
- Series 9. Artwork and Awards, 1962-1980. 1 box (.42 linear ft.)
- Series 10. Photographs, circa 1930s-2005. 5 boxes (2.0 linear ft.)