Biography
Although Maxwell Anderson earned far greater renown for his stage dramas than for musical composition, his partnerships with the German-born Kurt Weill produced multiple enduring standards in the popular-song repertoire. Born in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, on 15 December 1888, Anderson grew up under a father who served as a traveling minister, resulting in an education scattered across several states. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of North Dakota in 1911 and completed a master’s at Stanford three years afterward. Brief teaching stints followed before he turned to journalism, contributing both reporting and editorial pieces to various newspapers and periodicals.
His debut play, the contemporary verse tragedy White Desert, reached Broadway in 1923 yet attracted scant notice. Seeking commercial footing, Anderson achieved his first substantial success the next year by co-authoring the World War I comedy What Price Glory. He returned to serious drama with Saturday’s Children in 1927, then resumed verse form for a series of historical works that began with Elizabeth the Queen in 1930 and continued with Mary of Scotland three years later. Both Your Houses earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1933, while the Sacco-and-Vanzetti-inspired contemporary tragedy Winterset brought the New York Drama Critics Circle Award; he repeated that honor in 1936 with High Tor.
In 1938 Anderson joined forces with Kurt Weill, who had recently fled Nazi persecution and arrived in New York seeking American playwrights as collaborators. Their initial project, Knickerbocker Holiday, depicted colonial New Amsterdam; Anderson supplied both book and lyrics. Although the musical enjoyed respectable success, one number, “September Song,” achieved an independent life as a pop standard, aided by a Frank Sinatra recording and subsequently interpreted by innumerable singers and jazz instrumentalists. Judy Garland later incorporated another selection from the score, “It Never Was You,” into her regular concert repertoire.
The same year Anderson and Weill began a second musical, Ulysses Africanus, but abandoned it when no suitable Black lead actor could be found. They remained on friendly terms, yet several years passed before another joint venture materialized. Weill had hoped Anderson would furnish lyrics for the work that became Street Scene, but Anderson, doubting his own lyric-writing ability, ceded that task to Langston Hughes. Meanwhile Weill completed several additional Broadway musicals, while Anderson continued writing such plays as Key Largo (1939), The Eve of St. Mark (1942), and Joan of Lorraine (1946). A film adaptation of Knickerbocker Holiday appeared in 1944.
The collaborators reunited in 1949 for Lost in the Stars, an adaptation of Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country that addressed racial conflict in South Africa. They incorporated material originally composed for the unfinished Ulysses Africanus, and the show opened late that year to largely favorable notices. Its title song quickly entered the pop canon, again recorded by Sinatra among many others. Anderson and Weill next attempted a musical version of Huckleberry Finn, but the project remained incomplete; Weill suffered a fatal heart attack in April 1950, thereby concluding Anderson’s brief career as a lyricist.
Anderson remained active as a playwright through the 1950s, producing among other works Barefoot in Athens in 1951 and The Bad Seed in 1954. He died in Stamford, Connecticut, on 28 February 1956 and was interred in Meadville, Pennsylvania, near his birthplace.
His debut play, the contemporary verse tragedy White Desert, reached Broadway in 1923 yet attracted scant notice. Seeking commercial footing, Anderson achieved his first substantial success the next year by co-authoring the World War I comedy What Price Glory. He returned to serious drama with Saturday’s Children in 1927, then resumed verse form for a series of historical works that began with Elizabeth the Queen in 1930 and continued with Mary of Scotland three years later. Both Your Houses earned him the Pulitzer Prize in 1933, while the Sacco-and-Vanzetti-inspired contemporary tragedy Winterset brought the New York Drama Critics Circle Award; he repeated that honor in 1936 with High Tor.
In 1938 Anderson joined forces with Kurt Weill, who had recently fled Nazi persecution and arrived in New York seeking American playwrights as collaborators. Their initial project, Knickerbocker Holiday, depicted colonial New Amsterdam; Anderson supplied both book and lyrics. Although the musical enjoyed respectable success, one number, “September Song,” achieved an independent life as a pop standard, aided by a Frank Sinatra recording and subsequently interpreted by innumerable singers and jazz instrumentalists. Judy Garland later incorporated another selection from the score, “It Never Was You,” into her regular concert repertoire.
The same year Anderson and Weill began a second musical, Ulysses Africanus, but abandoned it when no suitable Black lead actor could be found. They remained on friendly terms, yet several years passed before another joint venture materialized. Weill had hoped Anderson would furnish lyrics for the work that became Street Scene, but Anderson, doubting his own lyric-writing ability, ceded that task to Langston Hughes. Meanwhile Weill completed several additional Broadway musicals, while Anderson continued writing such plays as Key Largo (1939), The Eve of St. Mark (1942), and Joan of Lorraine (1946). A film adaptation of Knickerbocker Holiday appeared in 1944.
The collaborators reunited in 1949 for Lost in the Stars, an adaptation of Alan Paton’s novel Cry, the Beloved Country that addressed racial conflict in South Africa. They incorporated material originally composed for the unfinished Ulysses Africanus, and the show opened late that year to largely favorable notices. Its title song quickly entered the pop canon, again recorded by Sinatra among many others. Anderson and Weill next attempted a musical version of Huckleberry Finn, but the project remained incomplete; Weill suffered a fatal heart attack in April 1950, thereby concluding Anderson’s brief career as a lyricist.
Anderson remained active as a playwright through the 1950s, producing among other works Barefoot in Athens in 1951 and The Bad Seed in 1954. He died in Stamford, Connecticut, on 28 February 1956 and was interred in Meadville, Pennsylvania, near his birthplace.
Albums
