''Dear Liar'', full title ''Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters'' is a play by American actor, director, and playwright
Jerome Kilty
Jerome Timothy Kilty (June 24, 1922 in Baltimore, Maryland – September 6, 2012) was an American actor and playwright. He wrote ''Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters.'' He worked extensively on the stage, both in the United States and abroad.
Career
K ...
.
It was first staged in 1957 and published in 1960. A television adaptation was made in 1964, directed by
David Gardner for National Educational Television.
Two film adaptations were later created, one in English by director Gordon Rigsby in 1981 and another in French as ''Cher menteur'' (meaning Dear liar) in 1982 by French director
Alexandre Tarta.
The play
The play is based on the correspondence between famed playwright
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw (26 July 1856 – 2 November 1950), known at his insistence as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 188 ...
and actress
Mrs. Patrick Campbell.
In the play written by Kilty, two actors duel with each other as they act on the letters exchanged between Shaw and Mrs. Campbell. In 1960,
Dodd, Mead & Company
Dodd, Mead and Company was one of the pioneer publishing houses of the United States, based in New York City. Under several names, the firm operated from 1839 until 1990.
History Origins
In 1839, Moses Woodruff Dodd (1813–1899) and John S. ...
published the play under the title ''Dear Liar: A Comedy of Letters adapted by Jerome Kilty from the Correspondence of Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell''.
The play was staged first in Chicago in 1957. A production by
Guthrie McClintic
Guthrie McClintic (August 6, 1893 – October 29, 1961) was an American theatre director, film director, and producer based in New York.
Life and career
McClintic was born in Seattle, attended Washington University in St. Louis and New York's A ...
and
Sol Hurok
Sol Hurok (also Solomon Israilevich Hurok; born Solomon Izrailevich Gurkov, Russian language, Russian Соломон Израилевич Гурков; April 9, 1888March 5, 1974) was a 20th-century American impresario.
Early life
Hurok was born ...
, starring
Katharine Cornell
Katharine Cornell (February 16, 1893 – June 9, 1974) was an American stage actress, writer, theater owner and producer. She was born in Berlin to American parents and raised in Buffalo, New York.
Dubbed "The First Lady of the Theatre" by cri ...
and
Brian Aherne
William Brian de Lacy Aherne (2 May 190210 February 1986) was an English actor of stage, screen, radio and television, who enjoyed a long and varied career in Britain and the United States.
His first Broadway appearance in '' The Barretts of ...
and directed by Jerome Kilty, had its world premiere on March 3, 1959 at the
Sombrero Playhouse
The Sombrero Playhouse was a regional theatre in Phoenix, Arizona. It was built in March 1949, the first legitimate professional theater in Phoenix, though the city did have a long tradition of Little Theater. Major Broadway and Hollywood star ...
in
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona. With over 1.6 million residents at the 2020 census, it is the ...
.
It then went on a national tour, arriving in New York on March 17, 1960. The play had a very successful run in New York. It was later staged in London for the first time in 1963. After London showings, in 1964 Kilty and his wife, actress Cavada Humphry, made a world tour with the play.
Television adaptation
In 1964, the U.S.-based
National Educational Television
National Educational Television (NET) was an American non-commercial educational, educational terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Ford Foundation and later co-owned by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It op ...
(NET) staged ''Dear Liar'' as a two-character play on its series ''NET Playhouse''. The television staging was directed by
David Gardner based on Jerome Kilty's work and starred
Zoe Caldwell
Zoe Ada Caldwell (14 September 1933 – 16 February 2020) was an Australian actress. She was a four-time Tony Award winner, winning Best Featured Actress in a Play for '' Slapstick Tragedy'' (1966), and Best Actress in a Play for '' The Prim ...
and
Barry Morse
Herbert "Barry" Morse (10 June 19182 February 2008) was a British-Canadian actor, writer, and director. He was known for playing Lt. Philip Gerard, the principal antagonist of the American television series '' The Fugitive'' (1963–67), as ...
.
Film adaptations
''Dear Liar''
The play was brought to the screen in 1981 by the director
Gordon Rigsby
Gordon may refer to:
People
* Gordon (given name), a masculine given name, including list of persons and fictional characters
* Gordon (surname), the surname
* Gordon (slave), escaped to a Union Army camp during the U.S. Civil War
* Gordon Heuck ...
with the lead roles by
Jane Alexander
Jane Alexander (née Quigley; born October 28, 1939) is an American-Canadian actress and author. She is the recipient of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and nominations for four Academy Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards. From 1993 ...
as Mrs. Patrick Campbell and
Edward Herrmann
Edward Kirk Herrmann (July 21, 1943 – December 31, 2014) was an American actor, director, and writer. He was known for his portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt in both the miniseries '' Eleanor and Franklin'' (1976) and 1982 film musical '' An ...
as George Bernard Shaw.
''Cher menteur''
A 1960 adaptation in
French
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
was written by
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau ( , ; ; 5 July 1889 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, film director, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the 20th-c ...
under the title ''
Cher menteur'' (Dear Liar).
The 1982 film directed by
Alexandre Tarta had in lead roles
Edwige Feuillère
Edwige Feuillère (born Edwige Louise Caroline Cunatti; 29 October 1907 – 13 November 1998) was a French stage and film actress.
Biography
She was born Edwige Louise Caroline Cunatti to an Italian architect father and an Alsace-born moth ...
as Mrs. Patrick Campbell and
Jean Marais
Jean-Alfred Villain-Marais (11 December 1913 – 8 November 1998), known professionally as Jean Marais (), was a French actor, film director, theatre director, painter, sculptor, visual artist, writer and photographer. He performed in over 100 f ...
as George Bernard Shaw.
References
External links
*
* (1964)
* (1981)
*{{IMDb title, qid=Q123538264, title=Cher menteur
1957 plays
American plays adapted into films
1981 films
1982 films
1980s English-language films
fr:Cher menteur