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Anne Nichols
Anne Nichols
Anne Nichols
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Anne Nichols (November 26, 1891 – September 15, 1966) was an American playwright best known as the author of Abie's Irish Rose.

Key Information

Biography

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Anne Nichols was born in obscure Dales Mill, in Wayne County, Georgia, to Julie and George Nichols. Her father George was the son of James Nicholas born in 1868. George had the Nicholas surname shortened to Nichols.

Nichols penned a number of Broadway plays, several of which were made into motion pictures. Her most famous production was Abie's Irish Rose, a farce depicting the tumult that arises with the marriage of a young Jewish man and an Irish girl. This play broke the record for the longest run in Broadway theater history, and was made into films in 1928 and again in 1946. Nichols sued Universal Studios for making The Cohens and Kellys, a film with a similar plot premise, but the use of stock characters was found to be outside of copyright protection in Nichols v. Universal Pictures Corp.

To a certain degree, Abie's Irish Rose paralleled the life of its author, who was born into a strict Baptist family, but married (and divorced) Henry Duffy, an Irish Catholic. Nichols wrote the play during this marriage, and would eventually convert to Catholicism herself.[1]

In 1937 Nichols produced Hey Diddle Diddle, a comedy play written by Bartlett Cormack whose setting was a duplex apartment in Hollywood. The play premiered in Princeton, New Jersey, on January 21 with Lucille Ball as Julie Tucker, "one of three roommates coping with neurotic directors, confused executives, and grasping stars who interfere with the girls' ability to get ahead." The play received good reviews, but there were problems, chiefly with its star, Conway Tearle, who was in poor health. Cormack wanted to replace him, but Nichols said the fault lay with the character and insisted that the part needed to be reshaped and rewritten. The two were unable to agree on a solution. The play was scheduled to open on Broadway at the Vanderbilt, but closed after one week in Washington, D.C., when Tearle suddenly became gravely ill.[2]

Nichols died from a heart attack while residing at a nursing home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, at the age of 75.[3]

References

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Anne Nichols

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Anne Nichols is an American playwright known for her long-running Broadway comedy Abie's Irish Rose, a work that achieved massive commercial success despite harsh criticism from reviewers. Born on November 26, 1891, in Dales Mill, Georgia, Nichols began her writing career with vaudeville sketches and early plays, completing over 20 works by the age of 27. When established producers rejected Abie's Irish Rose, she mortgaged her home to finance and produce the play herself, which premiered on Broadway in 1922. The interfaith romance between a Jewish man and an Irish Catholic woman defied critical scorn to run for five years and thousands of performances, becoming a landmark of popular theater and earning Nichols substantial wealth through stage runs, film adaptations in 1928 and 1946, and radio versions. Beyond her signature work, Nichols authored other plays such as Love Dreams and Linger Longer Letty, some of which were adapted into motion pictures. She was married to Henry Duffy from 1915 until their divorce in 1924 and had one son. Nichols died of a heart attack on September 15, 1966, in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, at the age of 74.

Early Life

Family Background and Birth

Anne Nichols was born on November 26, 1891, in Dales Mill, Wayne County, Georgia, although some genealogical sources record the year as 1889 and others note variations such as 1890. She was the daughter of George Nichols, a lawyer, and Julia Bates Nichols. Born into a rigid Baptist family, Nichols grew up in Philadelphia under her grandmother's influence in a strict religious environment that shaped her early life. She ran away from home at age 16 to pursue a career in entertainment.

Entry into Vaudeville

Nichols completed two years of high school and six months of business school before leaving to enter vaudeville. Her first job was as a dancer in the traveling biblical extravaganza The Shepherd King, earning $18 per week. She performed as an actress on vaudeville circuits and with touring companies during the early 1910s, typically until around 1914. Around 1915, Nichols transitioned from performing to writing vaudeville sketches for other acts, a shift prompted by her experience in the industry and the need to create material. This move marked the beginning of her development as a playwright, building on her stage experience to craft short comedic pieces. Her early vaudeville sketches included Heart's Desire (1916, co-authored with Adelaide Matthews), The Man from Wicklow (1917), The Happy Cavalier (1918), Springtime in Mayo (1920), Down Limerick Way (1920), and Marry in Haste (1921), all produced in vaudeville venues. These works established her reputation for light, accessible comedy and laid the foundation for her later full-length plays.

Theatrical Career

Early Plays and Collaborations

Anne Nichols entered the professional theater scene in the late 1910s and early 1920s with a series of plays and musicals that established her as an emerging playwright and book writer on Broadway, though most met with limited commercial success before 1922. Her first Broadway credit came as the book writer for the musical Linger Longer Letty, which opened at the Fulton Theatre on November 20, 1919, and closed on January 21, 1920, after 69 performances. In 1921, Nichols contributed the book for the musical Love Dreams, which premiered at the Times Square Theatre on October 10, 1921, but ran only briefly, closing later that month after approximately 40 performances. Earlier that year, she collaborated with playwright Adelaide Matthews on the comedy Just Married, which opened at the Comedy Theatre on April 26, 1921, later transferring to other venues including the Shubert Theatre, and achieved a more substantial run of 402 performances before closing on April 8, 1922. These early works reflected Nichols' initial forays into full-length Broadway productions and her partnerships, particularly with Matthews, amid a period of modest recognition and short runs for some projects prior to her greater breakthrough. Following these efforts, Nichols moved to self-produce her subsequent play.

Abie's Irish Rose

Abie's Irish Rose is a comedy play written by Anne Nichols that premiered on Broadway at the Fulton Theatre on May 23, 1922. The story centers on Abie Levy, a young Jewish man, who secretly marries Rosemary Murphy, an Irish Catholic woman, leading to humorous confrontations when their respective families meet and clash over religious and cultural differences. After facing rejections from commercial producers, Nichols self-produced the show, mortgaging her home to finance it. The play received universally negative reviews from critics, who derided its sentimental plot and perceived lack of sophistication, yet it achieved immense popular success with audiences. It ran for 2,327 performances until closing on October 22, 1927, establishing it as the longest-running Broadway production up to that time. The play's financial triumph made Nichols a millionaire through royalties. Nichols later produced and directed a revival that opened at the Little Theatre on May 12, 1937, running for 46 performances. Another revival opened at the Holiday Theatre on November 18, 1954, with a shorter engagement. Nichols also novelized the story, publishing it in 1927. The play was subsequently adapted into films and radio productions.

Later Stage Productions and Producing

Following the extended success of Abie's Irish Rose, Anne Nichols remained involved in the theater during the 1930s primarily as a producer and director. She produced and directed Pre-Honeymoon (previously titled Her Weekend), a comedy co-written with Alford Van Ronkel. The play opened on Broadway at the Lyceum Theatre on April 30, 1936, and continued through December 12, 1936. In 1937, Nichols produced and staged Hey Diddle Diddle, a comedy by Bartlett Cormack set in Hollywood. It premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey, on January 21, 1937, before a capacity audience, with Conway Tearle in a leading role alongside Lucille Ball. Although plans were made for a Broadway transfer to the Vanderbilt Theatre, the production closed during its out-of-town tryouts. That same year, Nichols directed and produced a revival of Abie's Irish Rose, which opened on Broadway on May 12, 1937, but closed in June after a brief engagement. These later efforts generally experienced shorter runs amid the economic difficulties of the Depression era.

Film and Media Adaptations

Screen Adaptations of Her Works

Several of Anne Nichols' plays from the 1920s were adapted into feature films during the silent and early sound eras, bringing her comedic stories to wider audiences. Her play Love Dreams was adapted into the Paramount film Her Gilded Cage (1922), directed by Sam Wood and starring Gloria Swanson. The play Just Married, co-written with Adelaide Matthews, served as the basis for the silent film Just Married (1928). Additionally, Nichols' Linger Longer Letty provided the source material for Give Me a Sailor (1938), a Paramount musical comedy directed by Elliott Nugent and featuring Bob Hope, Martha Raye, and Betty Grable. Nichols' greatest commercial success, Abie's Irish Rose, received multiple screen adaptations. The play was first brought to film as Abie's Irish Rose (1928), produced by Paramount and directed by Victor Fleming. A later sound remake, also titled Abie's Irish Rose (1946), was released by United Artists and directed by A. Edward Sutherland, with Nichols receiving co-screenplay credit. Produced by Bing Crosby, this version revisited the play's central theme of interfaith marriage and family conflict.

Screenwriting and Other Media

Anne Nichols' direct involvement in screenwriting and other media was relatively limited compared to her extensive work in theater, with most of her contributions tied to extensions of her signature play Abie's Irish Rose. In the 1928 film adaptation of the play, she received uncredited lyrics credits for the songs "Rosemary" and "Little Irish Rose," both with music composed by J. S. Zamecnik. She later served as consulting writer for the NBC radio serial version of Abie's Irish Rose, which aired from 1942 to 1944. Nichols co-wrote the screenplay for the 1946 film adaptation of Abie's Irish Rose. These engagements reflect her ongoing association with her most commercially successful creation across different formats, though they represent only a small portion of her overall output.

Personal Life

Marriage and Family

Anne Nichols married actor and producer Henry Duffy, an Irish Catholic, in 1915. Coming from a Baptist background, Nichols' interfaith union paralleled the central theme of her best-known play, Abie's Irish Rose, which depicts a Jewish man marrying an Irish Catholic woman amid family conflict. The couple had one son, Henry Duffy. The marriage ended in divorce in 1924.

Later Years and Conversion

In her later years, Anne Nichols converted to Catholicism. After experiencing financial setbacks during the Great Depression, she lived modestly on royalties from the many incarnations of Abie's Irish Rose, including stage revivals, film adaptations, and radio serials. In a 1962 interview with The New York Times, Nichols emphasized her belief that "love and prayer are the most important things in life" while expressing pride that her theatrical work conveyed "humanity, humor, cleanness, kindliness, and simplicity." She died of a heart attack on September 15, 1966, at the Cliff House Nursing Home in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, at the age of 75.

Legacy

Commercial Success and Critical Reception

Abie's Irish Rose premiered on Broadway at the Fulton Theatre on May 23, 1922, and ran for 2,327 performances until October 1927, setting a record as the longest-running non-musical play in Broadway history at the time—a mark that stood until Tobacco Road surpassed it in 1939. This extraordinary commercial endurance, spanning more than five years, generated substantial royalties and related income for Anne Nichols, enabling her to amass a large fortune and attain millionaire status from the play's success. Despite its popular triumph, the play faced near-universal critical disdain, with reviewers condemning its reliance on ethnic stereotypes, simplistic plotting, and sentimental humor as crude and lacking in sophistication. Contemporary critics often dismissed it harshly, yet audiences embraced its gentle, idealistic portrayal of interfaith harmony, leading to sustained attendance and cultural impact. Nichols' work thus became a prominent example in theater history of audience appeal prevailing decisively over critical consensus. Anne Nichols' most notable legal legacy arises from her 1930 copyright infringement lawsuit against Universal Pictures Corporation over the film The Cohens and Kellys, which she claimed copied the central premise of her play Abie's Irish Rose—a romance between a Jewish man and an Irish Catholic woman opposed by their families. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled unanimously in favor of Universal, holding that copyright protection does not extend to general ideas, basic plots, or stock characters, but only to the specific expression of those elements. Judge Learned Hand's opinion articulated the idea-expression dichotomy, explaining that similarities in themes or situations common to many works do not constitute infringement, and this decision has endured as a foundational precedent in American copyright law distinguishing protectable expression from unprotectable ideas. Culturally, Abie's Irish Rose contributed to broader acceptance of interfaith marriage in 1920s America by presenting a lighthearted story of Jewish-Irish union that ultimately bridged family divides and religious differences, offering a popular narrative of reconciliation at a time when such unions were uncommon and socially contentious. The play's theme helped foster dialogue about religious tolerance between Jewish and Irish Catholic communities amid ethnic tensions in urban centers like New York. Nichols is chiefly remembered for Abie's Irish Rose and its associated legal and cultural ramifications, even as her other dramatic works received less enduring attention.

References

  1. https://www.nytimes.com/1966/09/16/archives/anne-nichols-is-dead-at-75-author-of-abies-irish-rose-play-panned.html
  2. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0629532/
  3. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0629532/bio/
  4. https://archives.nypl.org/the/21586
  5. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/educational-magazines/nichols-anne-1891-1966
  6. https://en.kinorium.com/name/472845/
  7. https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/nichols-anne
  8. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/anne-nichols
  9. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/linger-longer-letty-6726
  10. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/love-dreams-12662
  11. https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1057/9780230609365.pdf
  12. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/just-married-9064
  13. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/abies-irish-rose-1064
  14. https://playbill.com/production/abies-irish-rose-fulton-theatre-vault-0000004612
  15. https://travsd.wordpress.com/2020/11/26/anne-nichols-wrote-abies-irish-rose/
  16. https://algonquinroundtable.org/centennial-of-abies-irish-rose/
  17. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/11/theater/abies-irish-rose-broadway.html
  18. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/abies-irish-rose-12223
  19. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/abies-irish-rose-2477
  20. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-production/pre-honeymoon-12122
  21. https://playbill.com/production/pre-honeymoon-lyceum-theatre-vault-0000007231
  22. https://www.nytimes.com/1937/01/22/archives/hey-diddle-diddle-has-princeton-premiere-capacity-audience-sees.html
  23. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/9670
  24. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0019044/
  25. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/5367
  26. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0018613/
  27. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/24671
  28. https://catalog.afi.com/Catalog/moviedetails/1343
  29. https://www.ibdb.com/broadway-cast-staff/anne-nichols-4183
  30. https://time.com/archive/6651456/milestones-apr-14-1924/
  31. https://web.archive.org/web/20180820074650/https://diosav.org/sites/all/files/archives/S8707p03.pdf
  32. https://www.thecatholicnewsarchive.org/?a=d&d=MNB19280505-01.2.24
  33. https://jewishcurrents.org/abies-irish-rose
  34. https://casetext.com/case/nichols-v-universal-pictures-corporation
  35. https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/abie-s-irish-rose
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