Joshua Logan

Joshua Lockwood Logan III, born on October 5, 1908, in Texarkana, Texas, was an American theatre and film director, playwright, screenwriter, and actor whose Broadway career spanned from 1932 to 1975. He died on July 12, 1988. Among his many distinctions, Logan shared a Pulitzer Prize for Drama for co-writing South Pacific and received multiple Tony Awards for his directorial work.

Logan's father died by suicide when Logan was three years old, after which his mother relocated the family to Mansfield, Louisiana, to live with her parents. Logan would later draw on that setting four decades later when writing The Wisteria Trees. His mother remarried six years after his father's death, and Logan subsequently attended Culver Military Academy in Culver, Indiana, where his stepfather taught. It was there that he encountered his first drama class. He went on to Princeton University, where he became active in the Triangle Club, the university's musical theatre organization, eventually serving as its president during his senior year. At Princeton he also participated in the University Players, an intercollegiate summer stock company that included fellow student James Stewart as well as Henry Fonda and Margaret Sullavan. Before completing his degree, Logan won a scholarship to travel to Moscow to observe Konstantin Stanislavski's rehearsals, and he departed Princeton without a diploma.

Logan made his Broadway debut as an actor in Carry Nation in 1932, followed by I Was Waiting for You in 1933. He subsequently spent time in London, where he staged two productions, directed a touring revival of Camille, and worked as an assistant stage manager. Returning to Broadway, he staged It's You I Want and To See Ourselves, both in 1935, and served as stage manager for Most of the Game that same year. He also staged Hell Freezes Over in 1935–36 and returned to acting in A Room in Red and White in 1936. A period in Hollywood followed, during which he contributed dialogue directing to The Garden of Allah, History Is Made at Night, and Suez, and co-directed the feature film I Met My Love Again for producer Walter Wanger.

Back on Broadway, Logan achieved his first major directorial success with Paul Osborn's On Borrowed Time in 1938, which ran for 321 performances. He followed that with I Married an Angel, running 331 performances, and then directed Knickerbocker Holiday, Stars in Your Eyes, Mornings at Seven, Two for the Show, and Higher and Higher, the last of which ran 84 performances. His revival of Charley's Aunt ran 233 performances, and the Rodgers and Hart musical By Jupiter, starring Ray Bolger, ran 427 performances.

In 1942, Logan was drafted into the U.S. Army, serving as a public-relations and intelligence officer during World War II. He was selected as an assistant director of Irving Berlin's This Is the Army and, while in Europe, organized entertainment units that performed near the front lines. He was discharged at the rank of captain. In 1945, he married actress Nedda Harrigan; a previous marriage to actress Barbara O'Neil, whom he had met through the University Players, had ended in divorce.

Logan's postwar career produced a remarkable string of successes. He directed Annie Get Your Gun, which ran 1,147 performances from 1946 to 1949, followed by Happy Birthday, which ran 563 performances, and John Loves Mary, which ran 423 performances. Mister Roberts, which Logan co-wrote and directed, ran 1,157 performances between 1948 and 1951 and earned him a Tony Award. He then co-wrote and directed South Pacific, which ran 1,925 performances from 1949 to 1954. Logan shared the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for South Pacific with Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, and the production earned him a Tony Award for Best Director as well as a Tony Award for Best Musical in 1950. The New York Times initially omitted Logan's name as co-author of South Pacific, and the Pulitzer Prize committee originally awarded the prize solely to Rodgers and Hammerstein; both errors were subsequently corrected. Logan wrote about the experience in his autobiography, noting that the minimization of his name led to years of people praising South Pacific in his presence without knowing he had contributed to it.

In 1950, Logan wrote, produced, and directed The Wisteria Trees, an adaptation of The Cherry Orchard set in Louisiana, which achieved modest success. He co-wrote, co-produced, and directed the 1952 musical Wish You Were Here, which struggled initially but became a sellout after Logan rewrote 54 pages of material by the ninth performance. He directed William Inge's Picnic in 1953–54, which ran 477 performances, and co-wrote, co-produced, and directed Fanny, which ran 888 performances in 1953–54.

Logan's work extended significantly into film. When director John Ford fell ill, Logan stepped in to complete the filming of Mister Roberts in 1955. He directed the film adaptation of Picnic, for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and Bus Stop with Marilyn Monroe in 1956. He directed Marlon Brando in Sayonara in 1957, earning a second Oscar nomination for Best Director, and directed the film version of South Pacific in 1958. He also directed the film adaptation of Fanny in 1961, Camelot in 1967, and Paint Your Wagon in 1969. His 1960 film Tall Story introduced Jane Fonda to movie audiences. In 1961, Logan served as a jury member at the 2nd Moscow International Film Festival.

Continuing to alternate between Broadway and Hollywood through the 1960s, Logan directed the Broadway musicals All American in 1962, which ran 86 performances, and Mr. President in 1962–63, which ran 265 performances. He also directed Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright, which ran 33 performances, and made the film Ensign Pulver in 1964. Ready When You Are, C.B.! ran 80 performances in 1964–65, and Look to the Lilies ran 31 performances in 1970.

In his later years, Logan appeared with his wife in the 1977 nightclub revue Musical Moments, which featured numbers from his most popular Broadway productions. He published his autobiography, Josh: My Up-and-Down, In-and-Out Life, in 1976, which included a frank account of his bipolar disorder, and a second book, Movie Stars, Real People, and Me, in 1978. In 1979, he produced Larry Cohen's Trick on Broadway, and in 1980 he directed Horowitz and Mrs. Washington, which ran six performances. From 1983 to 1986, Logan taught theater at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida. He was also responsible for bringing Carol Channing to Broadway in Lend an Ear.