George Kelly was an American playwright known for his traditional morality comedies, including The Show-Off and Craig’s Wife. His niece was Grace Kelly, who became Princess Grace of Monaco. Kelly’s plays focused on egoists and were criticized for their portrayal of women. He was also a closeted homosexual.
George Kelly is an American playwright, best known for his plays The Show-Off, Craig’s Wife and The Torch-Bearers. Born in Pennsylvania in 1887, over the next 87 years he wrote eleven plays, won a Pulitzer Prize and had numerous film adaptations of his works made.
George Kelly is also known for his most famous relative, his niece. Grace Kelly was a very famous actress, she began her career in theater with the support of her uncle, and later moved to work for MGM, where she won an Oscar for her part in The Country Girl , as well as appearing in notable Hitchcock films such as Rear Window and Dial M For Murder. Because of her role in the film, Grace Kelly was named head of the US delegation to Cannes, where she met with Prince Rainier III. The two soon married and Grace Kelly became Princess Grace, giving birth to an heir, Albert II, great-granddaughter of George Kelly.
Although the fashion of the era in which George Kelly wrote, in the 1920s and 1930s, was toward modernism and more experimental forms of theater, he tended to stay with traditional structures and styles. His plays were morality comedies, with little subtlety, telling stories simply and with great moral force behind them. The main focus of his work is on the egoists, distinguishing them and demonstrating the enormous flaws of their character. There is little sentimentality in his plays, little real love or affection, but the plays are seldom excessively dark.
The Torch-Bearers, Kelly’s first work, from 1923, distinguishes a theater company composed exclusively of obsessed, unprofessional, indulgent actors and an unfeasible director. His next work, The Show-Off, from 1924, was by far his most commercially popular work. It follows a businessman who is annoying and obnoxious in almost every way, wears a toupee, laughs obnoxiously at everything anyone says, lies to everyone he meets, and generally proves a nuisance to everyone he comes across. meet.
While the first two plays were rather farcical, with a relatively light-hearted tone, his third piece, Craig’s Wife, dropped any pretense of politeness in its criticism. Craig’s wife follows a domestic housewife as she methodically destroys her marriage through her own obsessions. She insists on keeping her home spotless and spotless, alienating her friends and eventually alienating her doting and protective husband. The play ends with the woman, Harriet Craig, standing alone in a perfect house. It was made into three separate films, in 1928, 1936 and 1950.
Throughout his life George Kelly was a closeted homosexual, maintaining a secret fifty-five-year relationship with William Weagley. His sexual orientation was an incredibly closely guarded secret and his family, with the exception of his niece Grace, absolutely refused to accept it. Some critics have suggested that his bias led to her harsh portrayal of women in his plays, which ultimately led to a massive loss of popularity in his later plays.
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