Tad Mosel
Encyclopedia
Tad Mosel was an American playwright
and one of the leading dramatists of hour-long teleplay
genre for live television
during the 1950s. He received the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
for his play All the Way Home
.
to George Ault Mosel, Sr. and Margaret Norman. Raised as a Presbyterian, he was eight years old when his father's wholesale grocery business failed following the stock market crash, and the family moved to the suburbs of New York City
. In 1931, George, Sr. launched a successful New York advertising company. Remembering his youth in Larchmont
and New Rochelle
, Tad Mosel stated:
Mosel's interest in theater began in 1936 when he saw Katharine Cornell
on Broadway in George Bernard Shaw
's Saint Joan
. He went for one year to the Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts
, graduating from New Rochelle High School
. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mosel dropped out of Amherst College
to enlist in the Army. During World War II, he was a Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Weather Service (1943–46) as a weather observer, including one year in the South Pacific. In the post-WWII years he finished at Amherst and did graduate studies at the Yale Drama School (BA), followed by a Master's at Columbia University
. He was writing plays while auditioning as an actor, and in 1949 he was on Broadway in the scene-stealing, non-speaking role of a confused private in the farce, At War with the Army.
(in 1953-54), two to Medallion Theatre (1953–54) and four to Playhouse 90
(1957–59). He also wrote for The Philco Television Playhouse
(1954), Producers' Showcase
and Studio One. After Eileen Heckart
appeared in his 1953 play about a troubled marriage, The Haven (on Philco Television Playhouse), Mosel and Heckart became friends, and he wrote several scripts especially for her, including the 1953 Other People's Houses (on Goodyear Television Playhouse) about a housekeeper caring for her senile father.
In 1997, Mosel recalled:
Mosel's All the Way Home premiered in New York November 30, 1960, at the Belasco Theater to critical acclaim. In addition to winning a 1961 Pulitzer Prize, the play was nominated for a Tony Award. A stage adaptation of James Agee
's novel A Death in the Family
, it dramatizes the reactions of a Tennessee family to the father's accidental death in the summer of 1915. The play was also performed several times on television—in 1963, 1971 and 1981. In Denmark it was known as I havn and directed for Danish television by Clara Østø in 1959.
The movie adaptation of All The Way Home (1963) was filmed in the same Knoxville, Tennessee
neighborhood where Agee grew up. Directed by Alex Segal
, it starred Robert Preston
, Jean Simmons
and Pat Hingle
.
Mosel wrote screenplays for the films Dear Heart, starring Glenn Ford
and Geraldine Page
, with Mosel seen in a cameo appearance as "Man in Lobby", and the popular Up the Down Staircase
, based on the novel by Bel Kaufman
and starring Sandy Dennis
.
He also was nominated for an Emmy Award
for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series for an episode of The Adams Chronicles, a PBS drama series based on the lives of presidents John Adams
and John Quincy Adams
and their families.
Many of Mosel's plays for television are available for viewing at The Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.
retirement community where he often lectured. He was preceded in death in 1995 by his partner of more than 40 years, McCall's
magazine graphic designer, Raymond Tatro.
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and one of the leading dramatists of hour-long teleplay
Teleplay
A teleplay is a television play, a comedy or drama written or adapted for television. The term surfaced during the 1950s with wide usage to distinguish a television plays from stage plays for the theater and screenplays written for films...
genre for live television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
during the 1950s. He received the 1961 Pulitzer Prize for Drama
Pulitzer Prize for Drama
The Pulitzer Prize for Drama was first awarded in 1918.From 1918 to 2006, the Drama Prize was unlike the majority of the other Pulitzer Prizes: during these years, the eligibility period for the drama prize ran from March 2 to March 1, to reflect the Broadway 'season' rather than the calendar year...
for his play All the Way Home
All the Way Home (play)
All the Way Home is a 1960 play written by American playwright Tad Mosel, adapted from the 1957 James Agee novel, A Death in the Family. Both authors received the Pulitzer Prize for their separate works....
.
Early years
Mosel was born George Ault Mosel, Jr. in Steubenville, OhioSteubenville, Ohio
Steubenville is a city located along the Ohio River in Jefferson County, Ohio on the Ohio-West Virginia border in the United States. It is the political county seat of Jefferson County. It is also a principal city of the Weirton–Steubenville, WV-OH Metropolitan Statistical Area...
to George Ault Mosel, Sr. and Margaret Norman. Raised as a Presbyterian, he was eight years old when his father's wholesale grocery business failed following the stock market crash, and the family moved to the suburbs of New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. In 1931, George, Sr. launched a successful New York advertising company. Remembering his youth in Larchmont
Larchmont, New York
Larchmont is a village in Westchester County, New York. The population was 5,864 at the 2010 census. It is located within the town of Mamaroneck, on the shore of Long Island Sound, northeast of Midtown Manhattan...
and New Rochelle
New Rochelle, New York
New Rochelle is a city in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the southeastern portion of the state.The town was settled by refugee Huguenots in 1688 who were fleeing persecution in France...
, Tad Mosel stated:
- My brother and I were given a sense of security. My brother is four years older than I am. We had a good, wonderful home. I had a marvelous mother and father... I adored my mother and father. They were both wonderful parents.
Mosel's interest in theater began in 1936 when he saw Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.Cornell is known as the greatest American stage actress of the 20th century...
on Broadway in George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
's Saint Joan
Saint Joan (play)
Saint Joan is a play by George Bernard Shaw, based on the life and trial of Joan of Arc. Published not long after the canonization of Joan of Arc by the Roman Catholic Church, the play dramatises what is known of her life based on the substantial records of her trial. Shaw studied the transcripts...
. He went for one year to the Mount Hermon School in Northfield, Massachusetts
Northfield, Massachusetts
Northfield is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 2,951 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area...
, graduating from New Rochelle High School
New Rochelle High School
New Rochelle High School is a public high school, comprising grades 9 through 12, in New Rochelle, New York, operated by the City School District of New Rochelle. NRHS serves over 3,300 students; offering more than 240 courses, including honors, research and advanced placement courses.NRHS...
. After the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mosel dropped out of Amherst College
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
to enlist in the Army. During World War II, he was a Sergeant in the U.S. Air Force Weather Service (1943–46) as a weather observer, including one year in the South Pacific. In the post-WWII years he finished at Amherst and did graduate studies at the Yale Drama School (BA), followed by a Master's at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
. He was writing plays while auditioning as an actor, and in 1949 he was on Broadway in the scene-stealing, non-speaking role of a confused private in the farce, At War with the Army.
Career
His first teleplay was performed on Chevrolet Tele-Theater in 1949. During the early 1950s, he became a leading scripter for live television dramas, contributing six teleplays to Goodyear Television PlayhouseGoodyear Television Playhouse
The Goodyear Television Playhouse produced live television dramas from 1951 to 1957 during the "Golden Age of Television".Sponsored by Goodyear, the hour-long anthology series was telecast Sundays at 9pm on NBC...
(in 1953-54), two to Medallion Theatre (1953–54) and four to Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90
Playhouse 90 is an American television anthology series that was telecast on CBS from 1956 to 1960 for a total of 133 episodes. It originated from CBS Television City in Los Angeles, California...
(1957–59). He also wrote for The Philco Television Playhouse
The Philco Television Playhouse
The Philco Television Playhouse, a live television anthology series sponsored by Philco, was telecast from 1948 to 1955. Produced by Fred Coe, the NBC series was seen on Sundays from 9:00pm to 10:00pm...
(1954), Producers' Showcase
Producers' Showcase
Producers' Showcase is an American anthology television series that was telecast live during the 1950s in compatible color by NBC. With top talent, the 90-minute episodes, covering a wide variety of genres, aired under the title every fourth Monday at 8 p.m. ET for three seasons, beginning October...
and Studio One. After Eileen Heckart
Eileen Heckart
Eileen Heckart was an American actress of stage, screen, and television.-Early life:Heckart was born Anna Eileen Heckart in Columbus, Ohio, the daughter of Esther and Leo Herbert. She was legally adopted by her grandfather, J.W. Heckart. Her family was of Irish and German descent...
appeared in his 1953 play about a troubled marriage, The Haven (on Philco Television Playhouse), Mosel and Heckart became friends, and he wrote several scripts especially for her, including the 1953 Other People's Houses (on Goodyear Television Playhouse) about a housekeeper caring for her senile father.
In 1997, Mosel recalled:
- Paddy ChayefskyPaddy ChayefskySidney Aaron "Paddy" Chayefsky , was an American playwright, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the only person to have won three solo Academy Awards for Best Screenplay....
, Horton FooteHorton FooteAlbert Horton Foote, Jr. was an American playwright and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his Academy Award-winning screenplays for the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird and the 1983 film Tender Mercies, and his notable live television dramas during the Golden Age of Television...
, Sumner Locke ElliottSumner Locke ElliottSumner Locke Elliott was an Australian novelist.-Biography:Elliott was born in Sydney to the writer Helena Sumner Locke and the journalist Henry Logan Elliott. His mother died of eclampsia one day after his birth...
, JP MillerJP MillerJames Pinckney Miller , known to friends and associates by the nickname Pappy, wrote under the name JP Miller. He was a leading playwright during the Golden Age of Television, receiving three Emmy nominations...
and all of the group of writers that I knew, we grew up at the same time, and our eyes were on the theater. That was the Emerald City. That was the goal. Now, television came on after World War II, and television was a pauper. It had no money. No "self-respecting writer" would deign to write for television. Even drunken screenwriters wouldn't write for television. So who was there left? It was us. It was kids who would work for 65 cents. And so with a very patronizing attitude you thought, "Well, if I could make a few bucks doing that, it would give me time to write the great American play." It didn't take too much experience to realize that television was a medium all in itself, and that it was a career all in itself, and it was a thrilling one. But we stumbled into it by being snobs if I may say so. They would give anyone a chance. I look back on it, and I think, "Weren't we lucky to be there?" Because it was pure luck that we were there... It was the stillness before you went on the air that was so dramatic because everybody would be in place in plenty of time, but everybody would be silent. Nobody talking, nobody moving--the hands on the keys but not moving. The only thing moving was the second hand on the big clock, and then when it hit the top everybody started to move. It was very dramatic, that peace, that calm before you took the dive into it. It was a great thrilling moment and you suddenly loved every actor, and you just wanted them all to be rich and have children and go to happy graves.
Mosel's All the Way Home premiered in New York November 30, 1960, at the Belasco Theater to critical acclaim. In addition to winning a 1961 Pulitzer Prize, the play was nominated for a Tony Award. A stage adaptation of James Agee
James Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
's novel A Death in the Family
A Death in the Family
A Death in the Family is an autobiographical novel by author James Agee, set in Knoxville, Tennessee. He began writing it in 1948, but it was not quite complete when he died in 1955. It was edited and released posthumously in 1957 by editor David McDowell. Agee's widow and children were left with...
, it dramatizes the reactions of a Tennessee family to the father's accidental death in the summer of 1915. The play was also performed several times on television—in 1963, 1971 and 1981. In Denmark it was known as I havn and directed for Danish television by Clara Østø in 1959.
The movie adaptation of All The Way Home (1963) was filmed in the same Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville, Tennessee
Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region...
neighborhood where Agee grew up. Directed by Alex Segal
Alex Segal
Alex Segal was an American television director, television producer and film director.He directed mostly on television making over 25 productions between his debut as a director on Starring Boris Karloff in 1949 and his death.He directed a few films including Joy in the Morning in 1965.He received...
, it starred Robert Preston
Robert Preston (actor)
-Early life:Preston was born Robert Preston Meservey in Newton, Massachusetts, the son of Ruth L. and Frank Wesley Meservey, a garment worker and billing clerk for American Express. After attending Abraham Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, California, he studied acting at the Pasadena Community...
, Jean Simmons
Jean Simmons
Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE was an English actress. She appeared predominantly in motion pictures, beginning with films made in Great Britain during and after World War II – she was one of J...
and Pat Hingle
Pat Hingle
Martin Patterson "Pat" Hingle was an American actor.-Early life:Hingle was born Martin Patterson Hingle in Miami, Florida, the son of Marvin Louise , a schoolteacher and musician, and Clarence Martin Hingle, a building contractor. Hingle enlisted in the U.S. Navy in December 1941, dropping out of...
.
Mosel wrote screenplays for the films Dear Heart, starring Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford
Glenn Ford was a Canadian-born American actor from Hollywood's Golden Era with a career that spanned seven decades...
and Geraldine Page
Geraldine Page
Geraldine Sue Page was an American actress. Although she starred in at least two dozen feature films, she is primarily known for her celebrated work in the American theater...
, with Mosel seen in a cameo appearance as "Man in Lobby", and the popular Up the Down Staircase
Up the Down Staircase
Up the Down Staircase is a humorous novel written by Bel Kaufman, and published in 1965.-Plot summary:The plot revolves around Sylvia Barrett, an idealistic English teacher at an inner-city high school who hopes to nurture her students' interest in classic literature and writing...
, based on the novel by Bel Kaufman
Bel Kaufman
Bella "Bel" Kaufman is an American teacher and author, best known for writing the 1965 bestselling novel Up the Down Staircase.-Early life:...
and starring Sandy Dennis
Sandy Dennis
Sandra Dale “Sandy” Dennis was an American theater and film actress. In 1966, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?.-Early life:...
.
He also was nominated for an Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Outstanding Writing in a Drama Series for an episode of The Adams Chronicles, a PBS drama series based on the lives of presidents John Adams
John Adams
John Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
and John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams
John Quincy Adams was the sixth President of the United States . He served as an American diplomat, Senator, and Congressional representative. He was a member of the Federalist, Democratic-Republican, National Republican, and later Anti-Masonic and Whig parties. Adams was the son of former...
and their families.
Many of Mosel's plays for television are available for viewing at The Paley Center for Media in New York City and Los Angeles.
Personal life
Mosel's death at age 86 of esophageal cancer came after 18 years of residency at Havenwood-Heritage Heights, a Concord, New HampshireConcord, New Hampshire
The city of Concord is the capital of the state of New Hampshire in the United States. It is also the county seat of Merrimack County. As of the 2010 census, its population was 42,695....
retirement community where he often lectured. He was preceded in death in 1995 by his partner of more than 40 years, McCall's
McCall's
McCall's was a monthly American women's magazine that enjoyed great popularity through much of the 20th century, peaking at a readership of 8.4 million in the early 1960s. It was established as a small-format magazine called The Queen in 1873...
magazine graphic designer, Raymond Tatro.