Hart grew up at 74 East 105th Street in
Manhattan, “a neighborhood not of carriages and hansom cabs, but of dray wagons, pushcarts, and immigrants” (Bach 1). Early on he had a strong relationship with his Aunt Kate, whom he later lost contact with because of a falling out between her and his parents, and her weakening mental state. She got him interested in the theater and took him to see performances often. Hart even went so far as to create an "alternate ending" to her life in his book
Act One. He writes that she died while he was working on out-of-town tryouts for
The Beloved Bandit. Later, Kate became quite eccentric, vandalizing Hart's home, writing threatening letters and setting fires backstage during rehearsals for
Jubilee. But his relationship with Kate was life-forming. He understood that the theater made possible "the art of being somebody else… not a scrawny boy with bad teeth, a funny name… and a mother who was a distant drudge." (Bach 13).
After working several years as a director of amateur theatrical groups and an entertainment director at summer resorts, he scored his first Broadway hit with
Once In A Lifetime (1930), a farce about the arrival of the sound era in Hollywood. The play was written in collaboration with Broadway veteran
George S. Kaufman, who regularly wrote with others, notably
Marc Connelly and
Edna Ferber. (Kaufman also played a role in this play's original Broadway cast: the role of a harassed screenwriter who solves other people's problems.) During the next decade, Kaufman and Hart teamed on a string of successes, including
You Can't Take It With You (1936) and
The Man Who Came to Dinner (1939). Though Kaufman had hits with others, Hart is generally conceded to be his most important collaborator.
You Can't Take It With You, the story of an eccentric family and how they live during the Depression, won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for drama. It is Hart's most-revived play. When director
Frank Capra and writer
Robert Riskin adapted it for the screen in 1938, the film won the Best Picture Oscar and Capra won for Best Director.
The Man Who Came To Dinner is about the caustic Sheridan Whiteside who, after injuring himself slipping on ice, must stay in a
Midwestern family's house. The character was based on Kaufman and Hart's friend, critic
Alexander Woollcott. Other characters in the play are based on
Noel Coward, Harpo Marx and
Gertrude Lawrence.
After
George Washington Slept Here (1940), Kaufman and Hart called it quits. Hart had decided it was time to move on. Throughout the 1930s, Hart also worked, with and without Kaufman, on several musicals and revues, including
Face the Music (1932),
As Thousands Cheer (1933), with songs by
Irving Berlin, Jubilee (musical) (
1935), with songs by
Cole Porter and
I'd Rather Be Right (1937), with songs by
Richard Rodgers and
Lorenz Hart. (Lorenz Hart and Moss Hart were not related.)
Hart continued to write plays after parting with Kaufman, such as
Christopher Blake (1946) and
Light Up The Sky (1948), as well as the book for the musical
Lady In The Dark (1941), with songs by
Kurt Weill and
Ira Gershwin. However, he became best known during this period as a director.
Among the Broadway hits he staged were
Junior Miss (1941),
Dear Ruth (1944) and
Anniversary Waltz (1954). By far his biggest hit was the musical
My Fair Lady (1956), adapted from
George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion, with book and lyrics by
Alan Jay Lerner and music by
Frederick Loewe. The show ran over seven years and won a Tony Award for Best Musical. Hart picked up the Tony for Best Director.
Occasionally, Hart wrote screenplays, including
Gentleman's Agreement (1947) — for which he received an Oscar nomination—
Hans Christian Andersen (1952) and
A Star Is Born (1954).
Hart also wrote a best-selling book,
Act One: An Autobiography, which came out in 1959. It tells of his early days, culminating in the opening of
Once In A Lifetime.
The last show Hart directed was the Lerner and Loewe musical
Camelot (1960). During a troubled out-of-town tryout, Hart had a heart attack. The show opened before he fully recovered, but he and Lerner reworked it after the opening. That, along with huge pre-sales and a cast performance on
The Ed Sullivan Show, helped ensure the expensive production was a hit.
Moss Hart died of heart failure at age 57 on
December 20 1961 and was interred in a crypt at
Ferncliff Cemetery in
Hartsdale, New York. Alan Jay Lerner gave tribute to Hart in his memoir
The Street Where I Live.
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