William Marchant (playwright)

William Marchant
William Marchant
Born	May 1, 1923; Allentown, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Died	November 5, 1995 (aged 72); Paramus, New Jersey, U.S.
Occupation	Playwright and screenwriter
Education	Temple University (BA); Yale University (MFA)

William Marchant (May 1, 1923 in Allentown, Pennsylvania – November 5, 1995 in Paramus, New Jersey) was a playwright and screenwriter. He is best known for writing the play that served as the basis for the 1957 Walter Lang movie, The Desk Set.

Marchant had been a resident of the Actor's Fund home in Englewood, New Jersey at the time of his death. He had earlier lived in the Stanton section of Readington Township, New Jersey, in a home owned by Broadway actress Dorothy Stickney.[1]

Education

Marchant was educated at Temple University in Philadelphia and the 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 most notable work, The Desk Set, opened on Broadway on October 24, 1955 at the Broadhurst Theatre and ran for 296 performances, with Shirley Booth in the lead role. The play served as the source material for an eponymous 1957 movie starring Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn.

In 1975, Marchant wrote The Privilege of his Company, a remembrance of Noël Coward, which was published by The Bobbs-Merrill Company.

He translated the French play Les Dames Du Jeudi for Lynn Redgrave and John Clark, 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 television production, and worked on two films: Triple Cross (1966) and My Lover, My Son.

References

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."

External links

William Marchant at IMDb

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[1] 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."